What is eating my cabinets?

[StoriedSally]

I’ve been away for a week. There’s a huge pile of sawdusty consistency stuff in a corner of my kitchen, under the cabinets. There are no creatures visible anywhere but lots of piles of this stuff. Does anyone know what it could be and how to evict it?

I have ants by my back door and it looks like that.

Dear God, I hope it's not eggs of some sort! 😱

Can you see tiny little holes under all that dust? If there is, is could be woodworm.

I would second woodworm, check for small holes, and if they're there, get some stuff and treat it A.S.A.P. otherwise your whole home will become infected with them.

🤮 sorry that gives me the creeps

It's quite unlikely to be woodworm, they struggle with the finishes on modern furniture/cabinetry and modern houses are too warm and dry for them.

I don't know what it could be though, I just live in an old as fuck house with a lot of woodworm and death watch beetle based chaos!

Do you have one of the microwaveable bean bag things? Looks like something has spread the contents of one around! Doesn't look fine enough to be woodworm.

There’s a type of ant that does this - I had the exact same thing in a rental a few years ago.

That's a huge amount to be woodworm in a week.

I'm assuming no droppings, so not mice or rats. It does look like an ants nest in progress! The ones you usually see in forests ...

Think you might want to call a pest contoller. Good luck! I'm itching now!!

I think it’s called a carpenter ant that does this

Wtf 😨

The woodworm traces we found in our house were much finer, like flour. And there isn't enough of the cupboards missing, as far as visible, for them to be the origin of these deposits. Some kind of insect must have laid or introduced them.

Thank you everyone. I can’t see any holes or any creatures. It looks like tiny lumps of wood /sawdust.

No droppings, no signs of rodents.

I’m going to call pest control tomorrow and then will update.

Another vote for ants

So when I had carpenter ants I never actually saw any ants, just heaps of this exact wood shavings all over the floor and behind the radiators. Pest control dealt with it by poisoning them somehow

That’s made me all itchy!

Carpenter ants maybe.